A long procession had begun to march at the end of the morning, composed of at least 6,000 people according to the prefecture, "probably a little more", and about 25,000 according to the organizers - the collective of associations "Bassines non merci", the environmental movement of the Uprisings of the Earth and the Peasant Confederation.
More than 3,000 gendarmes and police were mobilized by the authorities, while "at least a thousand" violent activists, "ready to fight with the police", participate in the rally.
The demonstration, banned like the last one that led to clashes in the fall, converged on the "basin" of Sainte-Soline, nickname given by their opponents to water reserves under construction in the region for agricultural irrigation.
"The goal is to approach and surround the basin to stop the work," said a member of the Earth Uprisings at the start of the procession, which then split into several groups for this purpose.
As the construction site approached, clashes quickly broke out between police and radical activists, with projectiles and mortar fire to which police and gendarmes responded with tear gas and water cannon, according to AFP journalists.
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